Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is Australia’s fifth largest retail bank, helping 1.6 million customers achieve their goals. With a vision to be Australia’s most customer connected bank, it’s moving further into the digital realm to make life easier for those it serves.

We talked to Dianne Bell, the Partner Connection Product Owner of iApply within the bank’s Technology, Change & Improvement team, about how the 158 year old company is modernising processes to make life easier for customers.

Can you talk about how legacy processes and forms impacted your customers and partners?

Banking is so heavily regulated that you can’t just get rid of forms and signatures, but we reached a point where we knew we had to change. Our application forms were too long and required customers to complete some fields that were unnecessary. Also, once forms were completed, each page would be printed out, reviewed, and signed by the customer before being scanned and submitted for processing. It was really time consuming and a hassle for everyone involved, including our third-party advisers and brokers. They’re often the ones sitting down with customers to complete their applications and doing the printing and scanning.

Another issue is that we felt the use of wet signatures had become an unnecessary risk. There was no way to verify who actually signed a form, or where and when they did it. We wanted to have that audit trail in case there was any dispute.

What steps have you made to modernise the way you do business?

We started with simplifying our forms. We removed jargon and unnecessary fields, and were able to reduce the number of execution pages on some forms by 80%. We also moved our application forms online and began working with DocuSign to fully digitise the process of completion.

What made you choose DocuSign?

The easier it is for customers to do business with us, the easier it is for us to grow the business, so it was important to have an electronic signature solution that was simple and easy to use. We also wanted a solution that would give us a record of where and when customers had signed.

Can you share how you’re using DocuSign today as well as your vision for the future?

We’ve recently embedded DocuSign into the application forms used by brokers and advisers, to open new customer accounts. Once these forms go live, brokers and advisers will be able to invite customers to sign from their device – rather than wasting time and paper printing out forms.

We’re excited about the improved convenience for customers and look forward to having a complete audit trail on applications. We also see a huge opportunity to streamline other processes involving preparing, signing and managing agreements. Our key focus is removing the frustration that comes with doing things manually and making life easier for the customer. If we can take just one step out of a ten step process, to make things easier for the customer, we’ll do it!